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| Rosemary Prinz, Helen Wagner and Don MacLaughlin starred in As the World Turns as Penny, Nancy and Chris Hughes. |
The Soap Box
Vol. III No. 10 September 1978
by John Genovese
(continued from Part 2)
1955
The networks began to take it easy after such a succession of sad cases. The only two serials to begin this year were anthologies sponsored by Borden on NBC, and one succeeded the other. The first, The Way of the World, portrayed disconnected plots taken from womens' magazine stories. The narrator was Gloria Lewis, and its duration was from January 2 to October 7.
Its replacement was A Date With Life (October 10, 1955 to June 29, 1956) which starred Logan Field as Jim Bradley, editor of Bay City News, who narrated the various sagas set in Bay City (later the setting of Another World). Field was later replaced by Mark Roberts as brother Tom Bradley. It was produced by Therese Lewis, who later produced The Brighter Day.
1956
In the daytime serial world, this was the year of the innovations. On April 2, CBS and Procter & Gamble premiered the first two television soaps to air a full thirty minutes daily, rather than the usual fifteen.